1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to recording apparatuses such as printers, and in particular relates to a recording apparatus having a tray used in loading a small recording medium with a certain degree of thickness such as a CD-R, a DVD, and a card.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various recording media used in recording characters and images thereon by a recording apparatus such as a printer have been proposed. Those include a small recording medium with a certain degree of thickness such as a CD-R, a DVD, and a card (referred to below as a CD (compact disk) together).
If a carrier route for cut paper is used when characters or images are printed on the recording medium mentioned above by a present general-purpose recording apparatus, the recording medium may not be properly transferred because the distance to transfer rollers cannot be appropriately arranged for its high rigidity. Also a problem arises that damage is produced in the recording medium or the carrier route. Then, a recording medium with a large thickness is conveyed on a route different from that for cut paper using a dedicated tray.
The above tray is required to devise cramping means for cramping the recording medium by a pair of transfer rollers and acquiring means for acquiring a gap between a recording head and the recording medium. As one of the means, there is releasing means having a lever provided in a recording medium for releasing the pressurizing the recording medium with pinch rollers by linking it to the movement of the lever.
In such a structure, a user inserts a tray having the CD loaded thereon to a predetermined position so as to pressurizing the recording medium on the tray by operating the lever when the position has been aligned. Furthermore, the gap is ensured by elevating a carriage having a head mounted thereon using the operating lever.
As a tray used in such a recording apparatus, a construction that an end of a tray is surface-finished with a soft material is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-344377.
However, there have been the following problems in the conventional construction mentioned above.
When transfer members such as the pinch rollers are released by operating the lever, a transferring member need to be provided for transferring a lever operating force by connecting the transferring member to the lever. Therefore, there is a problem of increased cost due to a complicated structure.
By providing the lever, a problem of increasing the apparatus in size also arises.
Moreover, there has also been a problem that a user has to operate the lever in the recording using the tray.
If the surface of the tray is covered with a soft material such as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-344377, a conveying load is increased because of the abutment between the tray and other members in the carrier route of the tray.